Thoughts, marinations and reflections from Geoff Smith, a High School Principal

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Our students live in a bubble called school. They are sheltered, protected, and innocent. While our IB MYP and Diploma Program strive to develop internationalism in our students and strengthen their learner profile attributes, our students are sheltered from so many realities of the world. I am worried.

There is a war against ISIS, a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, Boko Haram steals “our girls” in Nigeria, Egypt is struggling as democracy has slipped away, the intractable Israeli/Palestinian problem persists, Ebola devastates parts of West Africa, climate change threatens the globe. Wars, beheadings, kidnappings, disease, and natural disasters: where do you start with generating understanding? It struck me the other day that there are probably students of mine who are viewing some of the graphic videos posted on youtube coming out of the middle east. How do they make sense of this violence? I am worried.

What do our students know (and care) about these challenges in the world? As we develop and nurture our students as critical thinkers, problem solvers, and inquirers who are compassionate and empathetic, how are we helping them learn about and make sense of current events, current news stories, and the state of the world?

My hunch is that some of our students have an idea about the events around the world. However, most middle and high school students are so caught up in their own worlds of social engagement with peers that dismissing the news is easy to do. Most are probably innocently naïve about events in the world. Frankly, and in my Continue reading →

How do you know when students are truly engaged? How do you know when a school community is truly engaged? Partly you “just know” intuitively. When I walk into classrooms it’s pretty evident when students are truly engaged. Leaning in, asking questions, participating, excited, lost in the dialogue and the give and take of the moments. It’s always pretty clear. There’s a sense of purposefulness to what is happening. The art of teaching is truly evident when a teacher orchestrates those moments of full engagement. It’s really special to see, and more importantly, to feel. Engagement is felt. To the contrary, boredom and non-engagement can also be felt. And it’s deadly. I’m lucky. I have many opportunities to visit classrooms. Students at LCS are most often engaged. Sometimes the engagement is about compliance but many times it’s engagement with enthusiasm, with a sense of purpose and excitement. This is high level and with strong meaning. I was watching Grade 11 student presentations the other day in a Global Politics class. They were so knowledgeable, articulate, and confident in their presentations. I was impressed, and the audience of students were equally impressed. It was purposeful and challenging.

But what is the link between engagement and learning? There is some ambiguity around engagement. Students can look completely engaged but is the task really worthy of the intense engagement? Are students merely complying? Continue reading →

This is a note relevant for the “Leavers”, “Stayers”, and “Newbies”. You know who you are in an international school.

Transience in international schools is part of the landscape. The end of another school year is approaching. Almost all international educators and membes of an international community will be transitioning in the coming months. Whether you are leaving or staying, you are transitioning. Transition is something to think carefully about. Inevitably transition comes with a specific collection of emotions, actions, and characteristic behaviors. It’s natural to “pull back” if you are leaving. It’s also natural to “pull back” if you are a Stayer, surrounded by Leavers. Sometimes this is simply to protect oneself from the discomfort that comes with being left behind.

The transition from being a “newbie” in a school community to being a ‘veteran” after one year, while preparing to support the transition of next year’s newbies is also a pattern to consider. Transition may become more complicated when you are a veteran of the school, or a host country teacher who has been part of a specific school for many years and will now see another “flock” of newbies arrive, two years after the last newbies arrived and two months after they have left! People come and go. It’s the nature of an international school.

I urge people to remain as present as possible. How do you want to “show up” at work amongst peers in the final weeks? My hope is that members of the community remain as connected as possible as the year draws to a close. Students and families deserve the best, and most focused, attention and all educators deserve the best from one another each and every day. Pay close attention to your actions, your thoughts, and your feelings over the coming weeks. All need to manage personal responses to the multiple transitions.

The fact is that it takes an entire faculty to build and sustain programs for students in schools. Commitment and dedication to students and learning must be kept in the forefront.

There have been many days as an educator when I’ve lamented the culture of compliance we foster in schools. Yes, we aspire towards a culture of curiosity and creativity but, in reality, we also perpetuate a culture of

compliance with our learners. Is it inevitable? If there is an inevitability about such a culture with students, is the same to be said for teachers as learners? Do we build a system in which the default for adult learners is compliance? If we want kids to become enquirers and creative problem solvers, and independent learners, shouldn’t the same be true for teachers? In reality if teachers aren’t learning, then students aren’t learning.

Ken Robinson says that “curiosity is the engine of achievement”. Therefore, if we foster curiosity, motivation, and independent thinking, achievement will follow. This is true for students and adults.

How do we get the best learning out of the adults in our schools?

A few ideas to remember as a leader and facilitator of adult learning in schools include:

Serve as a role model for learning. Demonstrating enthusiasm and role modeling as a learner is critical. Sharing articles, insights, and generating excitement around learning is contagious. Passionate and committed learners become learning leaders and role models for others!

Accept that the continuum for adult learning is variable. Adults, as kids, are in various stages of development. Adults early in their professional lives may bring different skills and approaches to learning as opposed to a highly experienced professional. Differentiating opportunities and accepting the wide range of differences is important. Avoiding judgments is vital. We all learn at different rates and with different comfort levels.

Recognize that some days (weeks, months) are better than others for learning. Teaching is stressful and some parts of a school year are better than others. The stress of responsibilities for grading, report writing, parent conference preparation, unit planning, holiday concerts, etc. There are certain dead zones when focused adult learning just isn’t really possible! But, there are other Continue reading →

learning and student learning. That is my intent and this is influencing recent topics at faculty professional learning meetings.

What are those instructional practices that we are exploring?

Earlier this year, I asked faculty to set two professional goals related to the following areas. These areas were identified as potential high leverage practices related to research from John Hattie.

Identifying Learning GoalsSetting clear learning expectations

Appropriate level of challenge for students

Clear success criteria (exemplars, rubrics, etc)

Feedback processes

Clear exemplars

Clear and specific feedback

Use of formative assessment

Questioning techniquesTeacher talk & Thinking time

High level questioning and discourse within classroom

Classroom positioning and classroom discourse

Simply put, if teachers do these things well, students learning will improve!

Great teaching is hard. It requires intense thought, planning, and instinct. We are trying to maintain a focus in the Secondary School on several specific areas that, if done well, are definite elements of great teaching!

Differentiated opportunities to support students (“differentiation is a mindset”)

Formative assessment that provides clear and specific feedback

Minimizing teacher talk and maximizing classroom discourse

If we work hard to become even better at our craft and expand our understanding, knowledge, and skills in these areas, we will be better teachers and student learning improves. This is my belief.

I think finding and maintaining a focus around instructional strategies and best practices is incredibly challenging. If teachers can really try to find those few areas to focus upon, latch onto, dig into their professional learning, and experiment with then adult learning will take place. If adults learn and expand professionally, student learning expands.

I’ve been thinking about mentors lately. At the outset of every school year I stress the importance of building relationships around the school. Relationships need to be nurtured with students, colleagues, parents, and so on. In particular I stress the imperative that students must feel cared for and guided by their teachers, and valued by their classmates. This is essential. I want every student to feel that there is an adult in their world that they can seek out for a conversation, for advice, for a moment of listening. I don’t often use the word mentor when I think about these relationships.

Building relationships and being a good listener are foundational to mentoring but mentorship is far more.

It’s not about friendship. Mentors teach. Whether it is through role modeling, offering advice, or challenging one’s beliefs and thinking it is about teaching and learning. It is about being pushed to consider alternatives or future directions. From learning a specific skill to mapping out future choices, mentors engage in significant and potentially life changing experiences for their mentees. While that sounds pretty “heady” and serious, it’s not something that happens overnight or without an amount of relationship building to begin with.

I’ve been thinking about mentors as I watch my two sons, both in their 20’s, navigate their worlds. My oldest son graduated from college, took a low paying volunteer type job with AmericCorps and ended up working in an office surrounded by interesting people. He ended up working closely with an individual who grew into his mentor. Over the course of the year, he Continue reading →

Over the years one collects various expressions, articles, and handouts that are timeless for their value. The print may fade over the years but their place on my bulletin board above my desk remains. One such article/handout has been with me for about 10 years, always on my bulletin board. The “Ten Tasks of Adolescense” is a great reminder of the challenges middle and high school kids face on a daily basis. Just as a parent watches the growth of their own child over the years, teachers gain levels of satisfaction in watching the development of their students over time. When you think of the challenges that kids face in

Building Relationships over Lunch!!

navigating day to day, week to week, year to year experiences as their minds and bodies are changing so rapidly, the role of schools and of teachers becomes so special. To be a great teacher, you must be tuned into these adolescent tasks. To be a great teacher you must be focused upon the relationships you are nurturing with students. Adolescent life is full of challenge and opportunity, great teachers maximize both.

Have a read of the 10 Tasks of Adolescents. At the bottom is an interesting extract focusing upon the importance of relationships between adults and students in schools.

The Ten Tasks of Adolescence

From Raising Teens, A Synthesis of Research and a Foundation for Action, a. Rae Simpson, Harvard School of Public Health

Adjust to sexually maturing bodies and feelings

Teens are faced with adjusting to bodies that as much as double in size and that acquire sexual characteristics, as well as learning to manage the accompanying biological changes and sexual feelings and to engage in healthy sexual behaviors. Their task also includes establishing sexual identity and developing the skills for romantic relationships.

Develop and apply abstract thinking skills.

Teens typically undergo profound changes in their way of thinking during adolescence, allowing them more effectively to understand and coordinate abstract ideas, to think about possibilities, to try out hypotheses, to think ahead, to think about thinking, and to construct philosophies.

Develop and apply a more complex level of perspective taking.

Teens typically acquire a powerful new ability to understand human relationships in which, having learned to “put themselves in another person’s shoes, they learn to take into account both their perspective and another person’s at the same time, and to use this new ability in resolving problems and conflicts in relationships.

Develop and apply new coping skills in areas such as decision making, problem solving, and conflict resolution.

Related to all these dramatic shifts, teens are involved in acquiring new abilities to think about and plan for the future, to engage in more sophisticated strategies for decision making, problem solving, and conflict resolution, and to moderate their risk taking to serve goals rather than jeopardize them.

Identify meaningful moral standards, values, and belief systems.

Building on these changes and resulting skills, teens typically develop a more complex understanding of moral behavior and underlying principles of justice and care, questioning beliefs from childhood and adopting more personally meaningful values, religious views, and belief systems to guide their decisions and behavior.

Understand and express more complex emotional experiences.

Also related to these changes are shifts for teens toward an ability to identify and communicate more complex emotions, to understand the emotions of others in more sophisticated ways, and to think about emotions in abstract ways.

Form friendships that are mutually close and supportive

Although youngsters typically have friends throughout childhood, teens generally develop peer relationships that play much more powerful roles in providing support and connection in their lives. They tend to shift from friendships based largely on the sharing of interests and activities to those based on the sharing of ideas and feelings, with the development of mutual trust and understanding.

Establish key aspects of identity

Identity formation is in a sense a lifelong process, but crucial aspects of identity are typically forged at adolescence, including developing an identity that reflects a sense of individuality as well as connection to valued people and groups. Another part of this task is developing a positive identity around gender, physical attributes, sexuality, and ethnicity, and as well sensitivity to the diversity of groups that make up society.

Meet the demands of increasingly mature roles and responsibilities

Teens gradually take on the roles that will be expected of them in adulthood, learning to acquire the skills and manage the multiple demands that will allow them to move into the labor market, as well as to meet expectations regarding commitment to family, community, and citizenship.

Renegotiate relationships with adults in parenting (and other) roles

Although the tasks of adolescence has sometimes been described as “separating” from parents and other caregivers, it is more widely seen now as adults and teens working together to negotiate a change in the relationship that accommodates a balance of autonomy and ongoing connection, with the emphasis on each depending in part on the family’s ethnic background.

The Relationships Gap

Looking closer at students’ perspectives has shown us that strong relationships with teachers are crucial. The quality of teacher relationships seems to be correlated to how much effort students put forth in their school work, and indeed, research indicates that effort is more important than innate ability when it comes to achievement (Dweck, 2006). As both the number of standardized tests and the stakes related to passing them increase, student effort must keep pace.

Our survey results imply that building relationships with students help increase their effort, which is consistent with research showing that the relationships students have with teachers is one of the best predictors of hard work and engagement in school (Osterman, 2000). When comparing responses of students who agreed with the statement, “ I put forth my best effort at school” with those who did not, we saw dramatically different perspectives on student-teacher relationships. Students who said they put forth their best effort were twice as likely as students who said they did not to agree with the statement, “Teachers care about me as a individual.” Similarly, students who said they put forth their best effort were twice as likely to agree that “Teachers respect students.”

Another telling survey finding was that 56 percent of students who reported that they put forth their best effort also said they have a teacher they can talk with if they experience a problem, whereas only 32 percent of the students who did not put forth their best effort agreed with this statement.

Some survey results indicated that many students lack a solid, trusting relationship with a teacher. For example, only 45 percent of students surveyed agreed that “Teachers care if I am absent from school.” How is it that more than half of the almost 500,000 students surveyed do not believe teachers care if they show up? Teachers must work harder to develop relationships with students and change these kinds of perceptions. Doing so will foster students’ connectedness at school — an undeniable catalyst for increasing students’ investment in learning.

Schools can — and should — implement practices that lead to strong teacher-student relationships.

Sometimes I do wonder about this blogging stuff. I wonder whether it’s worth the time and energy it takes to put together a link or a post. But, I do believe it has a place in my world of work, within the community that I specifically work within. I enjoy writing and I do believe there are many opportunities for communicating important messages as well as putting resources into the hands of community members. The links that I post are meant to be drawn from by teachers, students, or parents and provide information or inspiration. I do believe I have interesting and potentially valuable messages to share. Having said that, I came across this little animation today. It is worth sharing. It’s worth considering as a student, teacher, or a parent. We all have good ideas and ideas worth sharing. I like the idea that some things are “Obvious to you, but Amazing to others” by Derek Sivers!

Congratulations to all of us for getting to the end of another school year. The end is always a busy time with lots of activity. From the activities with the Grade 12 students that culminated with graduation on May 24 to final exams a week later to sports day to the final couple of assemblies and then……it’s good-byes all around, some permanent and some temporary until August. It is an emotional time. It is important to feel emotion when a good friend is leaving or a teacher you respect is moving on, that means the relationship has value in your life.

I appreciated the last few days of school. In particular I appreciated the final assembly. The final assembly allowed us to acknowledge and send off all of our Grade 6-11 students who are leaving LCS. Every year students leave…..and it is emotional. We also farewelled 12 teachers. Students did a great job in farewelling the teachers. Students, through their claps and cheers and expressions of “we will miss you” created an atmosphere of appreciation that sent a powerful message to their teachers. These relationships matter. All students should know that these relationships matter to all of the teachers as well. Teachers care deeply about their students.

A school is just an empty set of classrooms until students and teachers show up. Then relationships are built, connections are made. It is in the power of the learning amongst teachers and students in schools that real change happens.

I hope and trust students have finished the school year in strong fashion and that you are prepared to enjoy the next couple of months and, most importantly to me, that you are well rested to begin again in August. There will be many new students, new courses, and new ways to explore options and interests. For right now, on a Sunday night at the close of the first weekend of summer vacation, enjoy the horizon of time that stretches in front of you. I will be sending periodic posts in the coming weeks. I want you to read my posts!!! Maybe, if you are so motivated, you will even leave a comment!

A school climate survey was conducted in March through a survey of students. 287 of our 350 students responded to the survey. How are we doing?

Below is the table of some of the results from the survey. The results in the columns represent the percentage of students who agree or strongly agree in one column and the percentage of students who disagree or strongly disagree in the other column.

Here’s an example of how to read the survey. Take a look at statement #3 “Teachers Respect Students”. 89 % of students agree or strongly agree while Continue reading →